


The Thing About Merula

by Chrysanthemum247



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery
Genre: Artistic Liberties, Attempted Seduction, Canonical Violet Eyes, F/F, Fluff and Humor, Hufflepuff, Humor, If Seduction is Butterbeer, POV First Person, Potions, Secret Crush, Teen Romance, The Author Has a Crush On A Fictional Character And Is Projecting, Year Four
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-07-10
Packaged: 2019-06-08 04:36:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15235482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chrysanthemum247/pseuds/Chrysanthemum247
Summary: It's Year Four, and our heroine has finally worked up the courage to approach her rather unusual choice of crush.I'm planning on finishing this, this is really a WIP and might get reworked and reposted but for now I'm pressuring myself into updating by posting this.





	The Thing About Merula

“So,” I sidle up to the taller girl on her potions bench, placing my cauldron down on the burner next to hers.

 

She stiffens when she hears it’s me. Years of self-inflicted conditioning. If anyone cares, I’ve actually been trying to break free from our first-year tryst for years now. Yet she still stiffens!

 

“McNamara. Isn’t there a law against Hufflepuffs consorting with the enemy?”

 

“I don’t recognize house segregation,” I reply, smiling charmingly. 

 

“That’s bullshit,” she retorts, still not looking up at me. She throws in whatever green powdered ingredient she’s got piled up next to her cauldron. The responding explosion is strangely parallel to the way she (finally) looks up at me: sudden and venomous. “You follow the house table assignments during meals.”

 

Touche. I beam at her, hoisting my cauldron over to above the flame and switching it on. 

“Not quite the same. That’s just me…hmm...” I let the word drag. Her violet eyes glitter over her ski-slope button nose. “Hmm. I suppose you could say I just have… a healthy respect for tradition.” I smile quick. I flick the burner on under my cauldron, carefully setting the dial to medium. 

 

She sets her stirrer down on the table with a  _ clunk _ . “Your friends aren’t saying  _ anything _ about this right now? At all? They don’t think you ditching them is a bit weird?” She leaves out the “to sit with me”. She must think I’m taking pity on her. She’s sat by herself at this same damn potions table for months, now. Which, in retrospect, might be my fault, if you’re thinking with the mind of a thirteen-year-old. It’s not my fault she was mean to them through third year. And it’s not my fault that, somehow, for some reason, I still like her. But it’s not for her I’m letting myself sit here. 

 

“No-pe,” I pop the  _ p _ . 

 

Despite the lines between her eyebrows, her eyes are quite pretty to look back up to. I find myself thinking of them like homing beams. Which is a bit weird, in reflection, but yet again, it’s her fault because she’s the one who takes time to put sparkly violet eyeshadow on every morning, making her rather irresistible. Huh, I laugh to myself, today must be Blame Merula For Every Happy Dysfunction In My Life.

 

“Do you mind?” she says after an eternity of eye contact. We’re staring at each other. It’s like some kind of impulsive showdown, like we’re meant to always be fighting one battle or another. It drives me insane, sometimes, but it mostly just makes me want to drag her to the nearest supply closet. Which would be Snape’s. Gross. I’m still staring, daring her to break away first.

 

“No-pe!” I pop the  _ p _ again, still not looking away. She does. 

 

She’s working on her potion. I’m tapping a meringue on the tabletop.

 

“Stop it!” she fake-whispers furiously. 

 

“Stop what?” I’m all innocence. The  _ look _ on her face! Ha!

 

“The tapping. Whatever the hell you’re doing with your hands. Why the hell are you even over here?”

 

“Woah, chill, Snyd-y.” The rhythm is now something vaguely jazzy. “Just thought you could use some company.” I glance pointedly to the open seats across from us.

 

Merula slides at least a foot away from me, stirring her cauldron. “I don’t need your  _ pity _ ,” she spits back at me. 

 

Ah. Yup. There it is. 

 

“OK.”

 

We sit in silence for a while. I stare blankly at the directions.  _ Add 3 grams moondew _ . Alrighty then… oh. My bag of it is less than a half.

 

“You got any extra moondew?”

 

“Get your own,” she mumbles under the sleeve of her robe, measuring something else with her wand, no doubt twenty steps ahead of me. 

 

Really? “You have plenty there,” I retort, staring directly at her, quite full, bag of sticky glowing droplets. She looks back up at me. 

 

“Fine.” She pushes it over.

 

“Thanks,” I reply, as sincere as I am. I take it and measure out what I need, replacing it just where she had it before.

 

“Next time, figure out a way to get it on your own,” She replies quickly, mumbling once again into her simmering cauldron. 

 

My own cauldron puffs pastel blue when I add it into the silver base. 

 

“So, Merula, I actually did want to talk to you,” I begin again. I hope I’m not annoying her. That would not be a good way to start this conversation.

 

“Oh?” she replies, pausing from her potion.

 

“Um, yea,” I slide my hands along the edge of the table, bracing myself. “I was wondering if you, dunno, might want to…” and then I can’t say it so I do the thing where I just get softer so I get a chance to rephrase. “Well, it’s rather stupid of me to ask cuz obviously you probably wouldn’t want to I mean you probably have Quidditch practice or something…”

 

“McNamara, I can’t hear you. At all.”

 

“What? Oh, sorry. I, erm, was wondering if you wanted to maybe come with my friends and I to Hogsmeade?”

 

“But we all go,” she replies, “it’s kind of a thing. The whole class goes at once.”

 

“Ha. No,” I smile. Was that sass? Hah! I love this girl. “I meant, like, to the Three Broomsticks. To hang out with us.”

 

She could say a million things right now. Including several jinxes, if she thinks I’m doing this to pull a prank on her. Her face is devoid of any tells, like a true Slytherin, but the way she’s holding her shoulders suggests she’s confused. 

 

“What do you need me for, then?”

 

“Pardon?”

 

“I’m assuming you need me to do something for you, and you’re bribing me with butterbeer.”

 

I laugh. Oh, Slytherins. 

 

“No, no, not at all!” I finally get out, “I just… think they should see how you’ve changed, is all.”

 

The crease on her forehead appears. She’s looking at me like I’m insane. Of course I’m insane.

 

“Are you sure you weren’t supposed to be sorted into Gryffindor?” she questions, as if that’s at all relevant.

 

“The Sorting Hat doesn’t make mistakes, Snide-y. That’s, like, Hogwarts 101.” She rolls her eyes at me. I tuck a stray whispy curl behind my ear, not really trying to refocus on the loopy handiwork of potions instructions in front of me. I’m on, what? Step three? 

 

“Your potion is about to bubble over,” she states, adding some dried herb into her cauldron. Sure enough, while I was poring over the instructions, the silver base and moondew combination was busy just about spilling over the side. 

 

“Shit!” This wasn’t like cooking, where you could just turn the heat down. Uhhh…

 

“Here,” she hands me a palmful of Bubotuber leaves, as far as I recognize them. I guess I stall too long, because she meets me with a sharp “Quick!” and a push of my hand towards the bubbling mass. With a flurry of prickly leaves, the potion is down to normal size. I breathe a sigh of relief.

 

“You’re really quite good at this, you know,” I say, peering at my cauldron. I hope it knows I’m still sitting by Merula, that if it tries any more funny business it will be quelled by a prodige.

 

“Are you talking to me, or your cauldron, McNamara?” She sighs, twirling her wand through steam. I’m hypnotized by it. I should probably watch my own cauldron. Instructions! Next step! Focus, McNamara! The pretty violet eyes will not disappear forever if you turn away for a second!

 

“You, of course.” I reach for my stirrer, three times clockwise once counter. I steal a look at Merula. No - that couldn’t be a blush, could it? A smile tugs at my cheeks. “So that’s a yes, then? You’ll meet us?”

 

“Fine,” she says, her foot popping up on the bench underneath her like a kid inspecting a spider spinning its web for the first time. She has these little absent-minded things I like, when she’s focused on something, fascinated and not paying attention, or in control, the things that make her different from everyone else beyond the purple eyes and choppy orange streaked hair and dark eyeshadow that clings to her lids like lichen to the trees in the Forbidden Forest. I’m wondering if I’ll ever get to tell her that I like those little things.

 

Baby steps, McNamara. “Great,” I smiled into my cauldron, and pretended to notice how she looked up at me. Hogsmeade, here we come.


End file.
